Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

[Reza]

L'aigle à deux têtes / The Eagle With Two Heads (Jean Cocteau, 1948) 8/10

The word "haughty" appears to have been invented for the distinguished French star of stage and screen, Edwige Fèuillère. One of the greatest French actresses of the 20th century, she specialised in playing characters who could look down at you and turn you to stone using her expressive eyes, her vibrant and perfectly modulated voice and well honed stage techniques to literally command an audience to focus on her person and her performance. Cocteau's sumptuously filmed story has her playing a widowed Queen ruling her country with an iron fist despite being under the veil and out of public life. Holed up in her castle and taking private rides around the countryside she holds sway over her people through her Ministers. Into her room unexpectedly drops an anarchist (Jean Marais - the director's muse and lover) who is a dead look-alike of her husband the late King. He has been sent to assassinate her. A cat and mouse game ensues where she turns the tables on him when he falls in love with her and she with him. Or is she in love with the memory of her late husband which she has transferred onto the anarchist? The two stars played the parts on stage for Cocteau and despite a busy supporting cast the two stars dominate in a game of oneupmanship leading to a very dramatic and memorably theatrical finalé.

[Reza]

Iron Man 3 (Shane Black, 2013) 3/10

Robert Downey Jr is always great fun as Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man. Pity this film sucks though. Iron Man takes on a vicious villain called the Mandarin (Sir Ben Kingsley) who, â la Osama, is a thorn up the ass of the United States but mid-point there is a twist which is supposed to be amusing and another villain (Guy Pearce) pops up. Helping our hero are the usual suspects - his live-in girlfriend Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Rhodes (Don Cheadle). The best scenes are between Tony Stark and a kid (Ty Simpkins) who unexpectedly comes to his help. The best set piece is the destruction of Stark's cliffside home. Otherwise it's just one big noise that drones on and on and on. Skip this installment.

[Reza]

Harakiri (Masaki Koyabashi, 1962) 10/10

Koyabashi exposes hypocrisy in early 17th century Japan when the feudal system was emerging. The film also broke tradition and presented the samurai genre in a different light with the plot depicting human tragedy in the context of an ethical dilemma between an elderly samurai warrior (Tatsuya Nakadi) and a rich clan leader who when exposed tries to hide his shame by falsifying the gruesome events that have taken place. The screenplay uses the device of flashbacks and voiceovers to weave a complex tale of honour, betrayal, humiliation and finally revenge within the context of the ritual of "harakiri" - the ritual suicide by disembowlment committed by samurai warriors to save their honour. Koyabashi uses the camera in remarkably inventive ways to enhance the story on screen - slow zooms, measured tracking shots, immobility and overhead reflective views. The film hinges on the complex performance of Tatsuya Nakadi who uses his still body and expressive face to depict a once happy man who goes from being deeply grieved to one who unleashes a savage wounded fury. This is a remarkable performance in one of the best Japanese films of all time.

[Precious Doll]

Jinnah (1998) Jamil Dahlavi 8/10

Oh wow, you gave this an 8. Jinnah was Pakistan's equivalent to Gandhi but without the epic sweep.

I must admit that I had never heard of Jinnah until recently as it was released on Blu Ray in the UK. I read numerous posts raving about the film and that Christopher Lee felt it was the best performance he had ever given so I decided to blind-buy a copy of the film.

Very glad that I did. I thought it was far superior to Gandhi which felt like one big long boring history lesson. Jinnah was a far more personal film and touched the issues at a very grounded level. And to top it off Sam Dastor's supporting performance as Gandhi was far more impressive than Ben Kingley's phoned in performance. In this film Gandhi felt like a living and breathing being - not an object of perfection.

Though at the end of the day I must admit that as much as I was impressed by Christopher Lee's performance in this he will always be Lord Summerisle to me.

[Reza]

Jinnah (1998) Jamil Dahlavi 8/10

Oh wow, you gave this an 8. Jinnah was Pakistan's equivalent to Gandhi but without the epic sweep.

[Precious Doll]

Hacksaw Ridge (2016) Mel Gibson 3/10
Girls Lost (2016) Alexandra-Theresse Keining 3/10
Three Wishes For Cinderella (1973) Valclav Vorlicek 7/10
Moonshine Mountain (1964) Herschell Gordon Lewis 3/10
Something Weird (1967) Herschell Gordon Lewis 3/10
Lowlife Love (2015) Eiji Uchida 6/10
A Taste of Blood (1967) Herschell Gordon Lewis 4/10
The Edge of Seventeen (2016) Kelly Freman Craig 6/10
This Stuff'll Kill Ya (1971) Herschell Gordon Lewis 4/10
Other People (2016) Chris Kelly 7/10
Klown Fowever (2015) Mikkel Norgaard 6/10
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Werner Herzog 7/10
Jinnah (1998) Jamil Dahlavi 8/10

[Precious Doll]

All the Way Home (1963) Alex Segal 7/10

Where did you get to see this? Have been searching for this film for 40 years.

It's available for streaming on Amazon.

It's also available in a nice print from Loving the Classics.

[Big Magilla]

All the Way Home (1963) Alex Segal 7/10

Where did you get to see this? Have been searching for this film for 40 years.

It's available for streaming on Amazon.

[Reza]

All the Way Home (1963) Alex Segal 7/10

Where did you get to see this? Have been searching for this film for 40 years.

[Precious Doll]

Crazylegs (1953) Francis D. Lyon 3/10
Antibirth (2016) Danny Perez 4/10
Yoga Hosers (2016) Kevin Smith 4/10
Hitchhike to Happiness (1945) Joseph Santley 4/10
All the Way Home (1963) Alex Segal 7/10
Equals (2016) Drake Doremus 5/10
Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951) Richard Siodmak 6/10
Naked Among Wolves (1963) Frank Beyer 4/10
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Gareth Edwards 5/10
One Kiss (2016) Ivan Cotroneo 4/10
She-Devils on Wheels (1968) Herschell Gordon Lewis 4/10
How to Make a Doll (1968) Herschell Gordon Lewis 2/10
Looking: The Movie (2016) Andrew Haigh 6/10
La La Land (2016) Damien Chazelle 7/10

Repeat viewings

Simshar (2014) Rebecca Cremona 6/10
Two Women (1960) Vittorio De Sica 10/10

[Reza]

La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016) 9/10

Chazelle's glorious homage to the stylized musicals of MGM, Fox and Warners from the Golden age along with a heavier and more obvious dose of Jacques Demy from the 1960s. Boy (Ryan Gosling) "meets" girl (Emma Stone). Girl shows boy the finger. Girl keeps running into boy. They meet, fall cute, get into a relationship, support each others' passion - he is a jazz music junkie and pianist and dreams of opening his own jazz bar while she is an aspiring actress forever failing auditions - and then succeed in life only to find that everything does not necessarily go as planned despite Hollywood magic showing what could have been life's outcome. The film moves at a fast pace starting with the exhuberant opening musical sequence set on a four lane overpass on an L.A. freeway amidst a traffic jam and continues with remarkably nuanced musical numbers reflecting the many moods of the two leads. Both stars use their incredible chemistry to create two very human characters - they could be any of us - who dare to dream, try to achieve their dreams, succeed, fall in love, find disappointment along the way and finally learn to accept life's mysterious and often bittersweet denouement. The film's incredible energy, telegraphed in the musical numbers via cinemascope, is courtesy of a constantly moving camera that swoops all over the place via dolly and crane shots - again an homage - with the classic camera crane shot going back to the dawn of movie-making, and which was frequently used in silent films to enhance the epic nature of large sets and massive crowds. The witty screenplay, colorful costumes and a lovely score all help to create old fashioned magic on screen with both stars at the top of their game. One of the year's best films and a must-watch.

[Reza]

Anthropoid (Sean Ellis, 2016) 6/10

True story about the plot to assassinate the "Butcher of Prague". To counteract the strong resistance movement in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, Hitler stationed his third in command, SS General Reinhardt Heydrich architect of the Final Solution who instituted a brutal crackdown on the Czech people. In London the exiled Czech government commissioned Operation Anthropoid to assassinate Heydrich by dropping agents via parachute to do the job. The film focuses on two undercover agents - Cillian Murphy & Jamie Dornan - who parachute into the country, establish contact with the local resistance, get housed with a local family and wait it out before attempting to kill. The actual assassination attempt gets botched with both the agents going on the run and hiding out in a church with the other agents. After getting betrayed by one of their own the Nazis lay siege to the church and a battle is fought to the death. Old fashioned film not unlike the dozens of propaganda films churned out by Hollywood during the war. The director intentionally chose a cast which is not too recognizable. It was a struggle by untrained ordinary people and it adds to the authenticity of the story filmed in sepia tones lending the film an almost newsreel quality. Many of the actual locations were used to film this story portraying desperate people during desperate times and facing the brutality of torture and death.

[Reza]

The Italian Job (F. Gary Gray, 2003) 5/10

Elaborate remake of the 1960s classic heist film with a great opening sequence set in Venice. A gang of professional thieves (Seth Green, Jason Statham, Mos Def), led by John Bridger (Donald Sutherland in the part played by Noël Coward in the original) and Crocker (Mark Wahlberg substituting for Michael Caine) manage to pull off a spectacular gold bullion heist but are betrayed by one of their own members (Edward Norton) and left for dead in an icy lake. The plot shifts to Los Angeles some time later with the survivors joining up with the deceased Bridger's daughter (Charlize Theron) to plan revenge on the rogue who betrayed them. From that delirious opening sequence - shot like a Bond movie - the plot turns into a dull revenge flick in sunny California with the obligatory chase sequences (Mini Coopers are used in homage to the original film) - and a cat-and-mouse game ensues with Norton who looks bored throughout (apparently he had to fulfil a contractual obligation and did not want to be in the film). A big disappointment despite the wonderful cast who try to give the plot a lift.

[Reza]

Oliver Twist (Roman Polanski, 2005) 4/10

Rather tired version of the Charles Dickens classic was urged onto Polanski by his wife for their kids but it appears to be more a memory piece for the director himself with the title character almost seeming like a shadow of his own self during the war years in Poland. Shot by most of the team who worked on the director's previous film "The Pianist" with London created on giant sets in the Czech Republic. The familiar story of the orphan boy, Oliver Twist (Barney Clark), who asked for more and his encounters with a gang of thieves - their leader Fagin (Ben Kingsley), the wily Artful Dodger (Harry Eden), the kind and helpful Nancy (Leanne Rowe) and the vicious Bill Sykes (Jamie Foreman). The screenplay cuts a number of characters and incidents from the novel but despite that the film goes on too long and after so many versions on celluloid it all smells of stale deja vu.

[Reza]

Race (Stephen Hopkins, 2016) 8/10

The story of Jesse Owens (Stephan James) - the American track and field athlete and four-time Olympic gold medalist at the 1936 Olympics. By-the-numbers screen biography is nevertheless fascinating from a historical perspective. The film tracks the star's amazing rise setting three world records and tying another in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan which has been called "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport" and has never been equalled. Trained by the wiseass and swaggering Larry Snyder (Jason Dudeikis), he later caused a sensation at the Olympics in Berlin which was being used by Hitler to show the superiority of the Aryan race. Back home he was snubbed by the White House (FDR) despite bringing home four gold medals - the price you paid for being black back then followed by continued lows in life. Handsomely produced film - with many scenes set in black jazz bars - with a great supporting cast - a hammy Jeremy Irons as Avery Brundage who was in favour of and headed the Olympic committee in 1936, William Hurt as Judge Jeremiah Mahoney who considered a boycott of the Olympics and especially Carice van Houten as feisty Leni Riefenstahl chosen by the Fuhrer to film the games under the watchful eye of Josef Goebbels and which became one of her masterpiece films ("Olympia") which showcased Owens. Rachel Portman's lovely score form a perfect backdrop to the gripping sports sequences.